Jason Pedersen | Utah Metal Fabricator

Barefoot in the Cave This isn’t a sermon. This isn’t a self-help book. It’s a receipt—for every mile I ran, every mountain I've summited, every prayer I didn’t say, every night I stayed alive when I didn’t want to. Some of those prayers didn’t happen because I was angry. Some because I was tired. Some because I didn’t believe anyone was listening. Sometimes all of it at once. I’m writing this because David walked out of a cave and became king. Saul walked out of a cave and became a ghost. And I walked out of a cell and became—still figuring it out. What surprised me wasn’t relief. It was the quiet. The fear that came with freedom. The numbness. The shame that didn’t stay behind when the door closed. Somewhere in all that, I noticed the difference wasn’t luck. It wasn’t talent. It wasn’t divine favoritism. It came down to four things. Not because I studied them. Not because I planned them. They’re just what surfaced when everything else was stripped away. Empathy. Self-Reflection . ...

Empathy — David Chose David was in the palace, surrounded by cedar and sandalwood, the kind of quiet that makes a man forget what consequences feel like. Everything about that place told him he was safe, untouchable. He saw Bathsheba on the roof, her skin catching the moonlight, and something small but dangerous moved inside him. Not a roar. A whisper. Take her. And he did. When she became pregnant, panic followed. Not regret. Panic. He tried to manage the situation instead of facing it. He wrote the letter to Joab, put Uriah on the front lines where arrows don’t miss, and waited for the problem to disappear. Uriah died. No parade. No relief. Just silence and the subtle sense that something had shifted under his feet. Then Nathan walked in. No threats. No guards. Just a parable. A rich man steals a poor man’s only lamb—the one he raised, the one that slept beside him—and kills it to impress his guests. David erupted. Slammed his fist down. That man deserves to die. Nathan didn’t argue....

Self-Reflection — David Chose Jerusalem was quiet that afternoon. Not the kind of quiet that feels peaceful—the kind that tempts you. No battles. No enemies. No pressure. Just David on the roof, looking out over a city that belonged to him. That’s when he told Joab to count the people. Joab knew what it was immediately. He warned him. Told him it was pride. Told him it would cost lives. But David wasn’t listening for wisdom. He was listening to numbers. To proof. To the sound of his own strength echoing back at him. For a moment, he forgot the difference between being king and playing God. When the count was finished, David’s conscience finally broke through. Before the plague came, he admitted that he had sinned and acted foolishly. But the consequences still spread. Seventy thousand people died, and when David saw the angel nearing Jerusalem, his reflection deepened into something more painful. He no longer saw only his own failure. He saw innocent people carrying the cost of a decis...

Accountability — David Chose David was hiding in a cave. It was damp and cold, the kind that settles into your bones and makes everything feel slower. Outside, Saul’s men were calling out, searching. Inside, David could hear Saul’s footsteps, close enough to recognize the sound of his belt, close enough to know this was the moment. Saul had unknowingly walked into the same cave where David and his men were hiding. David’s men saw the moment as permission. The man hunting him was suddenly vulnerable, close enough to touch, and no one outside would have known what happened. David crept forward with his blade and cut a corner from Saul’s robe. Then his conscience struck him. Instead of killing Saul, he cut the corner of his robe. Just enough to prove he could have gone further. Just enough to know the choice was real. For a second, he felt the pull to finish it, to take control completely. But he didn’t. He put the weapon down and walked back out into the light holding that scrap of fabri...

Transcendence — David Chose Look, I get why this hits me. Because I’ve felt that kind of empty. David’s son Absalom—his own kid—turns on him. Takes the throne. Sleeps his women right out where everyone can see. Not privately. Publicly. On the roof. In daylight. It’s not just rebellion. It’s humiliation. It’s a statement: You are finished. The city flips. Advisors defect. Men he trusted start choosing sides. The whisper spreads faster than truth ever does—“God’s done with him.” David doesn’t fight back. Doesn’t scream. Doesn’t even grab shoes. He walks out barefoot. And a king does not go barefoot. Not in that culture. Not ever. Kings are robed. Elevated. Carried. Protected from the ground itself. Bare feet meant mourning. Shame. Surrender. It meant you were stripped of status. He chooses it. Head covered. Weeping. Dirt cutting into his skin with every step down the Mount of Olives. The people around him crying too. This isn’t theatrical. This is collapse. He still has loyal men. He sti...

Prayer: What Silence Did to Me David didn’t learn to pray on a throne; he learned in a cave—cold stone, silence, nothing but his own breath echoing back to him. My cave has taken many forms over the years. It was the cell where I spent four long years, where the silence pressed in and every day felt heavier than the last. And even after prison, life has felt like a series of new caves—different walls, same echo. Each one has forced me to confront what I really believe about God, about people, and about myself. I used to love prayer. I would kneel and talk to God like He was right there—real, present, listening. It wasn’t ritual; it was conversation. I felt close to Him, heard and known in a way that felt personal and steady. But after prison, something in me cracked. I came to believe that God answers prayers through people. And for a time, it felt like that was exactly what was happening. Lawyers came into my life who saw me not as a label or a headline, but as a human being. They und...